WE ARE lucky to have a state broadcasting network that regularly produces serious religious programming. Radio 4’s 15-minute Lent Talks started on Sunday night, and this year involve an exploration of power in the light of Christ’s Passion.
In the first of six episodes by different presenters, Keely Dalfen, chief executive of The Brick, a Wigan-based charity, explored the relationship between power and poverty, and their links with judgement and morality.
Appropriately, she started with Orwell’s reflections in The Road to Wigan Pier on society’s labelling of poor people as “deserving” or “undeserving”. The meat of the programme was a series of stories about how people who have no financial margin for error have their lives upended by what are minor problems for others.
I would have liked more biblical and theological reflection than the intermittent bursts that the programme provided, but Ms Dalfen’s comment that addiction, very specifically, was “where compassion thins and judgement thickens”, will remain long in the memory. Might we all follow her advice to let Lent train us in restraint not only of appetite, but also of judgement; for judgement is fundamentally an expression of power?
Is five hours long enough to teach people the backstory of the Israel–Palestine conflict? How Did We Get Here?: Israel and the Palestinians (Radio 4, first episode 9 February, available on BBC Sounds) consists of ten half-hour episodes — a significant investment of BBC resources which requires a similarly significant investment of listener time and attention.
Despite that, the pace of its journey through the course of the history of the Levant is blistering, and the scale is sometimes panoramic. The second episode (16 February) took us from the conquest of the Holy Land by the Caliph Umar, in the 630s, via the Crusades to the 19th-century Greater Syria of the Ottomans.
Jonny Dymond and his calm, authoritative presenting style are a great asset to this challenging broadcasting project, and this episode was further assisted by his experts’ being two radio naturals: the author Simon Sebag Montefiore, and Professor Eugene Rogan of the University of Oxford. This is the sort of series that lends itself to downloading, to listen to in the car.
Driving between services was how I stumbled on Worship at Home (Premier Christian Radio, Sundays), with the former fashion-industry insider Simon Ward. The idea of people celebrating their own communion at home, mediated by a voice over the radio, all accompanied by a sermon from Rick Warren, will sit uneasily with many Anglicans.
Yet the mix of hymns and worship songs was surprisingly traditional, Ward’s thoughts on the Bible were occasionally insightful, and Premier specifically aims the programme at people who simply cannot make it to church. Perhaps it is a lifeline for the housebound and work-bound, and some apposite auditory accompaniment for the cleric dashing between churches on Sunday morning.
